Questions tagged [gm-preparation]
For questions about the techniques that game masters use to prepare for a game session. (For preparing a campaign, use the [campaign-development] tag instead.)
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What sort of cheat sheets for a new DM lead to a better flowing 5e game of Dungeons and Dragons?
The question is, what elements on a DM screen are essential?
I'm new at playing and DMing, altough a lot of experience watching games, just got a group to play with now.
Started with the starter set ...
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How best to progressively reveal the layout of a location to players?
I have been gamemastering tabletop RPGs for years now, but I'm still wondering what is the best way to deal with this.
Specifically: how to graphically describe to your players their surroundings ...
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How to get to know my players' expectations?
I am soon starting a new game with a bunch of new people that I have never played with - and some of them I barely spoken to. I am going to be the GM and will introduce them into the setting that they ...
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How do I select background music for my RPG campaign? [closed]
Music is an essential component of my games. When running games set in the Star Wars universe, the music of John Williams adds a new dimension to the experience, both for me and for my players. Now ...
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How much, and what kind of, advance planning is appropriate for a sandbox campaign?
New GM attemping to get ideas for a campaign down something similar to a tabletop fallout game.
How much info is too much info for general prep? Can there ever be too much? Or is there a general ...
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Are there guidelines for homebrewed content?
I am going to be a first-time DM in the near future, and one of the players wants to run a homebrewed class that sounds pretty exciting. I'm eager to include the class, but some searching only turned ...
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Is there any good place on the internet that hosts monster playtests? [closed]
I've been a DM for a while for 3.5. I've run many NPC characters, however only a small fraction of monsters out of the books (comparatively). Also, I like to use templates liberally as well as advance ...
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Players skipping side quests just to have a laugh at the DM
Something that's happening frequently at my table recently is that the players are making choices deliberately to waste my preparation.
If they see something that obviously took some preparation that ...
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How to play with friends who don't want to read the rules?
I want to play an RPG with my friends. However, they are a bit impatient, and I'd have to wait forever before they'd read the rule-book. I've read it all, because I found it interesting. They kind of ...
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Methods for round-robin style DM'ing in AD&D?
Round-robin storytelling has been around for a while, and something I have always been interested in experimenting in AD&D with a variation of GM'ing where players take turns becoming the GM in ...
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Are there guidelines for party stats by CR?
The 5e DMG provides a table of average monster stats (damage per round, AC, etc.) by CR, along with a set of modifiers to account for special abilities and resistances.
Is there a similar set of ...
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How do I run a successful and engaging campaign without combat?
I'm thinking of starting my own campaign with a few of my friends with me as DM, primarily because I wasn't extremely impressed with the campaign my friend was DMing. When I started thinking about the ...
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How do I escape the Quicksand Box?
I have a very significant problem whenever I try GMing any given game; I try to provide a world with a lot of wiggle room for the characters as well as factions/NPCs they interact with. Oftentimes my ...
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How can I utilize overly-violent PCs for character development / progressing the story?
I'm fairly new to D&D and especially DMing. I've started a new campaign with 2-3 people and more may be joining soon, which might make this question entirely useless to ask if the new players ...
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I keep forgetting about lighting in the heat of a session. How do I remember my notes?
One thing I’ve been struggling with as a newbie GM is keeping track of how light or dark a certain room is. My players and I have been playing a D&D 5e starter campaign with me as the GM. I might ...
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